Are we about to see a return to the days of the polytechnic? The government’s shake-up of higher education could lead to a divided sector with less not more choice
The Higher Education White Paper signals the beginning of a transition from a centrally planned economy, in which each university is allocated a quota of student places, to a market in which student choice ultimately determines the supply of places.
The politically charged expression for this is ‘marketisation’. One can take the view that it is a good thing or a bad thing for HE to be a market. On balance, I am in favour, because if executed properly it puts student choice at the heart of higher education. Those who see HE as being an essentially public venture might well take the opposite view.
Lord Browne’s review had a clear idea of how students should exercise their choice. In his scheme, every suitably qualified student would get a voucher, which they could use to pay any university that would admit them. The white paper is more cautious. For students with higher entry qualifications – AAB at A-level or equivalent – there will be a market. They can be recruited by any university without regard to a quota.
A quota will still apply, however, to less well qualified students, and this quota will be shifted gradually towards universities that charge less than most (less than £7,500 after any discounts). So, it’s a combination of a real market for well qualified students, and a kind of simulated market – in which the quota is allocated according to price – for the rest.
The advantage for the government is that it creates a degree of competition in price and quality (or at least perceptions of quality) while controlling the cost to the state and avoiding the kind of instability that a true market might bring if introduced quickly. There are parallels with transitions from centrally planned to market economies, for example in central and eastern Europe in the 1990s.
But what will this really do for student choice? The reform has the potential to create a stratified system with some universities charging the maximum fee to teach very well qualified students, others teaching less qualified students more cheaply, and not much in between. In its most extreme form, this might lead to a new version of what, until 20 years ago, was called the ‘binary divide’ between universities and polytechnics.
Diversity of provision is a good thing, but mechanisms that encourage stratification in this way might make it more difficult for universities to find their own place in the market. The consequence for the students might be less, rather than more, choice.
Universities that go for the highly qualified entrants and those that go for low price will become increasingly different from each other. Promotion and relegation between the two ‘leagues’, which is necessary for a really dynamic university sector, will become more difficult.
The broad aim of the white paper – introducing the beginnings of a market while controlling cost - was the right one. But we need to move, soon, to a truly student-focused market of the kind envisaged by the Browne review.
Professor Nigel Seaton is senior deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Surrey
